


The Creature, July 1414, Shire Reckoning

by orphan_account



Category: Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Hobbits, Horror, The Shire, over 1000 words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-04-06
Updated: 2008-04-06
Packaged: 2017-10-04 08:13:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dark creatures are creeping into the Shire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Creature, July 1414, Shire Reckoning

For a month in the summer of 1414 Hobbiton was closed to visitors, all travelers stopped at the roads and told to turn back or take the old cattle paths back to East Road, and travel as groups if at all possible. Post-hobbits dropped the packages and letters off to the guard at the road block, and someone would (walking, always, with a friend or two) drop them off at the recipients' house.

It was at the back of the hobbits' minds at all times that month, even as they went on with normal life. The news of the first senseless murder had been on everyone's lips, shock and shouts and disbelief, but the second stilled their tongues, being something too terrible to be discussed. Mongo Burrow and Gildy Hardwall were buried, quietly, with just their close families standing by the open earth, bunched together against the suddenly chill wind. The others watched from the houses down below, or from within their minds, all thought bent on what might be coming next.

(White and dry and cold like a sheet left out in the wind, they'd been, and with their faces peaceful and calm, lying bloodless and at odd angles, Mongo in his bedroom by the window, slouched over the head of the bed, and Gildy, her little body dangling senselessly on a tree branch.)

Marigold splashed her feet in the Water boldly, thinking (in the back of her mind, how she'd once left a doll in her favourite climbing tree overnight, and in the morning found it dangling, unlodged by some night creature, and in her mind Gildy must have hung like that doll, caught by her leg in the crook of a branch) about how the Cotton house was nearly in sight, except when they sat between that big rock and the willow sprouts, Rosie and her, hidden from all, and that was as good as being safe. Besides, it wasn't night yet for many hours.

It wasn't that difficult to forget about danger, after a while: they splashed around for a bit, kissed for a bit, and lay back in the shadow, bodices opened for comfort and skirts tugged around their waists, hid from the heat and waiting chores. Rosie teased Marigold about Frodo, and Marigold teased Rosie about Sam, and Rosie wasn't embarrassed at all, and the teasing turned into arguing, jealousy lying unspoken behind accusations of heartlessness. They made up soon enough, kissed for a while longer (such a delicacy, ah, practice it had been in the beginning, and now something entirely new, strange and wonderful and secret), and lay tangled, talking about dreams and slights and fairytales.

It lay on the ground, nested under freshly turned earth behind the rock, and heard them through its sleep. As night began to creep closer, it woke up slowly, breathless, mouth full of dirt, to the sound of their murmuring soft voices, and hunger woke with it, moved it. It was mostly hunger by now, but not only that – never only that. The part of it that wasn't hunger, was sadness. The sadness lay down, lay back, while hunger yearned and howled silently, and thought about a different self it had once known.

But it had to eat, so it rose.

A week later, the road blocks were carried away, and business resumed as normal. Lily Cotton watched her lads carry back the dining room benches that had marked the blockade, from her rocking chair in the porch, where she liked to knit in the summer. She admired them, her handsome strong lads, and then looked back down at the bright knitwork against her plain brown dress. (It would not do, for a hobbit in mourning, to wear bright colours; but she could knit them, and would, and had to, to remember there were bright lovely things in the world.)

Her boys were bringing back the chairs, and life was going back to normal, but it wasn't normal, and would never be again.

The door opened behind her, and arms wrapped around her shoulders, and a kiss was pressed on the top of her head. She smiled and patted Rosie's hand.

She had her daughter, and should be grateful, should be happy, and she smiled up at Rosie, and called her sweet lass, and treasure, and her baby. She was all these things, certainly; and a blessing, too. She would not, should not, could not let her see how Lily was, now, only half a hobbit, now that her twin was dead and buried, cold, bloodless, and slowly rotting. (Or so they all hoped, for there were such stories abroad of monsters the mind would turn away from contemplating, who violated all laws of growth and death, and Lily would not think, should not think, could not think of her brother as anything but fruitful earth, now, and gone, gone, gone.)

It was an exchange, by his choice, she told herself – the girls' lives for his, and for half of Lily's soul. He'd consider it fair, and, in truth, so did she.

(They arrived at the last moment, they said, with Marigold bleeding and hysterical, sprawled over the rock like a rag doll, and Rosie with a branch in her hand facing the thing, her face a mask of horror. It had fingers like claws, bone filed sharp, and a mouth like a deep black well in pale grey rock. Erling had hit it running, full body, and they'd rolled.)

It had come from the east, they said, brought by a foul wind; not the pursued, as those men and elves who sometimes wondered through or near the Shire on their way to the furthest west, but a pursuer, a vanguard. That's what was said, muttered in dark corners, when the wind was chill and the moon dark, even in years to come.

But it was gone now, and the roadblocks were gone, and life was normal, calm and good and fruitful. And whatever the east would next spit out at them, there'd be no sense in worrying about it now, the hobbits said in the bright mornings, when nightmares had already dissolved.

(Like the creature, crumpled to dust and ash at the hands of Tom and the lads, after Erling's body had been pulled off, and they'd fallen onto it, with pitchforks and shovels and pieces of wood.)

Rosie's scars faded, and Marigold's, in time, became pale and even lovely, crossed as they were by the scars of pregnancy, and the wrinkles of old age. And on Erling's grave, and on Gildy's, and on Mongo's, no leaf stirred except by wind, no earth moved, and no-one heard, on lonely nights, the scratchings and weepings and groanings of throats full of dirt.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a request that specified hobbit femslash and vampires.


End file.
